Reader Discussion: Why Don't You Play MOBAs?

According to a recent Game Informer poll, about 30 percent of responders had no interest in MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arenas). Another 30 percent didn’t even know what a MOBA was, and only 10 percent of you played MOBAs regularly.

Last weekend, The International Dota 2 Championships drew in a record 4.5 million unique viewers on Twitch and culminated with winning team Alliance taking home $1.4 million of a $2.8 million pot — the largest in eSports history. My question to you is: why the disparity?

Until this year, I had no experience with MOBAs. I have gaps in my gaming knowledge, but rarely do I know nothing about an entire genre. I began playing Dota 2 with four friends and was immediately hooked by its unbending reliance on teamwork and communication. Unlike in Call of Duty, one bad apple really can spoil the whole bunch.

This isn’t a campaign to get everyone invested in Dota 2 or League of Legends; people play what they like, and that’s great. But what’s holding you back from giving MOBAs a try? Some of the best ones are free to play, and not in an exploitative way. For those without a gaming PC, there are great console options like Awesomenauts or Monday Night Combat that offer twists on the genre.

If you already decided to dive in, what convinced you to take the plunge? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Update: For those asking, a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) is a subset of the real-time strategy genre in which players control one hero instead of an army of units. Using teamwork and hero skills, players push up a series of lanes lined with turrets and weak non-player characters until they reach and destroy the enemy's base. There are, of course, many variants across different games. Adam's review of Dota 2 goes into more detail.

I just don't care for them. I tried one out but I couldn't get into it and found it boring and just not my cup of tea. I am okay with RTS games; XCOM: EU was pretty fun for me and really addicting, even though I wasn't doing to well on medium mode. Guess it's a matter of taste.

I used to play League of Legends and was reasonably decent. But the community is just a raging cess pool of toxic hate. ESPECIALLY to the new players. And I was just tired of hearing *Long string of non-printable explatives* Id rather play games where the "baddies" can be helped, and not ruin the experience for everyone. EVERYONE was a newbie at some point and MOBA communities seem to forget that.

I played the original DOTA mod on Warcraft III years ago and was never a fan. I haven't tried any current MOBA, but I wouldn't be able to play if one bad teammate could make you lose; especially with today's trolling culture. I also hear that MOBA's like League of Legends has a community worse than Call of Duty, which I didn't think was even possible. Those are a couple of reasons why I don't play MOBA's.

I played Dota for many years and was actually ranked 7th in the world (at least in stats in pub games) at one point. The demographics of people who played Dota were 50% jerks, 30% people who never talk, 10% noobs, 9% alright people, and 1% nice people. It is also a huge time sink without any foreseeable end.

"Let no good deed go unpunished" This is the mentality many MOBA players use when they're playing. Wheteher winning or losing your team mates are constantly hostile towards you or each other it seems no matter what the situation. Why stick out your hand to help if its constanly going to be bitten? Why stick around such a caustic community if you continue to get sick? Why spend thousands of hours learning how to use every character's ultimate to its fullest potential just to hear "Stop feeding" only because you died once the whole match? Why have real life friendships been torn asunder like a impaled mouse being eviscerated by the grey Shrike? Why?

Well, I do know what a MOBA is but I've never played one and my computer is complete crap. If I take it off of safe mode it just dies. No idea how to fix it. Neither can my friends. Plus I'm too broke to get a new one. But in all honesty, even if I had a gaming rig, I probably wouldn't play one because anonymity turns people into petulant ass@#%@s.

The community in online games for the most part can be very hard. It seems like they are even worse in MOBA games. Maybe its just the team play aspect but there seem to be more trolls than actual good people playing MOBAs. At least thats my experience in HoN and DoTA2...

I'm not much of a PC player, but I've been told the basics by my cousin who plays almost religiously. It seems like a game where everyone has to take it seriously, whereas in CoD, you don't have to be a tryhard. While one bad apple can spoil a bunch as you said, one good one can save a team. From what I've been told, unless everyone in the game is doing their damnedest, you have no chance of winning. Sometimes I want to play leisurely, and when I want to play for keeps, I don't have to rely on my team to win in CoD. Ironically, I hate playing FFA in games.